Mama's Girl
by scorpiaux
Summary: It wasn't easy growing up the only child. A series of excerpts from the childhood of Lin Beifong. Toph/Sokka, Rated M.
1. Chapter 1

**Mama's Girl**

It wasn't easy growing up the only child. A series of excerpts from the childhood of Lin Beifong. Toph/Sokka, Rated M.

* * *

When Lin was less than a year old, she met her father.

This was the day her mother wore her hair loose. It flowed down to her backside in one thick, black stroke. Lin was in her mother's arms, gripping her kimono and pushing the silky hair through chubby fists. "This is it," Toph said, presenting the child to the man. When he reached for the girl, Lin clung tighter to the strands of her mother's hair, and the man was hesitant to take her. "Don't be so gentle, she isn't going to break," scolded Toph, and thrust the child squarely into her lover's chest. Lin's lips wavered and her eyes filled with water. The man held her at arm's length.

"Don't cry," warned Toph flatly.

"She's…uh, a healthy size," said the man. "Right? Um. Hi, Lin." He turned the girl to face him and cautiously drew her closer to his chest. He smelled like rainwater and old snow, something dusty and natural. To him, Lin smelled like bean sprouts and rosewater, an aftermath of living in the apartment above the city's noodle shop. Lin looked at her mother, who was crossing her arms and supporting her weight on the doorframe.

"Don't cry," Toph said again. The man held her for a moment longer before Toph snatched the child from his arms with a suddenly hostility. "Yeah, she's healthy," she answered. Toph spun on her heels and placed Lin in her playpen, a makeshift enclosure crafted from earth and a mesh metal fence. "No thanks to you."

He put his hands up as though he was still holding his daughter, but his tone was defeated. "Toph—"

"We're doing fine," snapped the earthbender. "I'm not being bitter. I'm just letting you know that we don't need your help and I certainly _don't_ want it. So don't come around here patronizing me. Or the kid."

He was a large man, his build full and muscular, his blue eyes focused on the girl in the pen. He inspected the apartment from the doorway as Toph did not invite him in. It was not messy but not well-kept, either. There was a metal pot of water heating up on a small stove, a window that overlooked a playground behind the city's primary school. He thought of his wife back home, his two children, and the village that called him its mayor. His gut turned and he felt queasy. He put his arm against the doorframe, unconsciously pushing Toph backwards, and held his stomach.

"Sokka," Toph said, crossing her arms, "you can leave now."

"Please wait," he begged, his voice watery. "This is really unfair… I don't know what to say. I didn't know… I didn't think—"

"You _didn't_ think!" Toph was laughing. She pulled her hair away from her shoulders and began rolling it in her hands aggressively, pushing it into a messy bun. "I mean, who _knew_ sex for _months_ would lead to pregnancy! It's really crazy, right? That's never happened in the history of human kind ever."

"That's not what I mean."

"Then what do you mean?" She was pointing at his chest squarely, her foggy eyes narrowed to slits. Her blindness never ceased haunting him, from the years he spent away from her to the nights they spent pressed against one another, breathing names and words of love and passion. He blushed at the memory and swallowed.

"I mean… I want to help. I want to be there for her." He pointed to Lin, who was entertaining herself with a stuffed air bison doll, courtesy of Sokka's sister. "I want to be here for you," he said. "You have to let me. At least listen to me."

Toph grunted, unconvinced. Sokka put his head in his hands. Later in Lin's life, Toph would claim that she did not find Lin's father handsome or charming or even very nice, but at this moment, Toph felt her grudge soften. She threw her arms in the air and turned around wordlessly, unable to face him. She scooped Lin into her arms and walked to the window. She turned off the stove and poured herself a glass of black tea. Sokka watched from behind his fingers. Surprisingly, Toph removed another glass from the cabinet beneath the sink and filled it.

"You can come in," she murmured over her shoulder. "I'm not bitter. We can talk. I'm warning you now that I have nothing to say to you. But I'll listen."


	2. Chapter 2

**Mama's Girl**

It wasn't easy growing up the only child. A series of excerpts from the childhood of Lin Beifong. Toph/Sokka, Rated M.

_** Many thanks for the reviews, alerts, and faves!_

* * *

"It's not like you were an accident," clarified her mother. "Your dad's just an idiot." Then she paused and dropped the slab of earth that levitated a few feet away. She straightened her pants and cleared her throat, clapping the dust from her hands. "I guess I was just as big of an idiot too. Gotta be honest when we talk about this sort of thing. It takes two. Just remember that when you meet some guy you think is a big deal. You'll wake up one day with a baby in your belly and find him snoring like a train. His mouth all open like this"— she slacked her jaw, crossed her eyes, snored grotesquely through her nose, and Lin giggled —"yeah! Not such a big deal then. That's when reality smacks you out of the dream, Lin-Lin." Toph widened her stance and lifted an even larger slab of earth, swirling it above her head and smashing it into the ground with a great, muffled crash and an "Umpf!" of effort.

Lin – known affectionately by her mother and their neighbors as Lin-Lin – was very bright for a two-year-old, but Toph knew that most of what she said wouldn't be understood for quite a few years. Her mother often said Lin's genius genes must have skipped a generation, because her father wasn't the brightest. "Your aunt is good," Toph would claim, as if affirming this for herself. "Katara's a smart cookie when you get past the ditzy good-girl act. But Sokka? Huh."

At two years, Lin could already earthbend, but only loose earth that her mother broke down for her. Pebbles, rocks, and other crumbled debris were easy. Lin rolled these around the lot behind their apartment, sorting pebbles by color, rocks by size. Her mother was happy the girl was realized as a bender, but feared that Lin's weak nature would hinder her bending ability later in life. It hurt Toph doubly, because she could not teach her daughter the way she had taught Aang several years ago. She couldn't place Lin-Lin in the way of a rolling boulder and force her to stop it. Though she almost never admitted it aloud, Toph loved Lin too much to ever dare a stunt like that, no matter how effective.

Now, as her mother bent the earth in the dirt lot behind their home, Lin watched carefully. Toph reached her fingers through the solid ground, scooping out handfuls of dry clay and topsoil. She kicked at the air and earth would follow the movement of her still leg, then the movement of her arms as she thrust the boulders hundreds of feet up, towards the sky, even higher than the apartment building. Lin watched with her mouth open. She didn't even notice her father standing at the backdoor of the noodle shop. As she was watching the moving earth, Sokka was watching Toph, the sweat that beaded on her brow and forearms, the expression of loss and focus that could paradoxically exist on a blind girl.

When she felt him approaching her, Toph shifted the earth under his feet into a kind of quicksand. He slipped downward until only his head protruded from the ground. Lin, delighted, came and stroked his ponytail.

"Very funny," mumbled Sokka, wincing as Lin pulled his ears. "You know, it was even funnier the last twenty times you did it."

"The last _ten_ times." Toph shrugged, a satisfied grin painted lopsidedly under her nose. "I figure you belong down there," she added smartly. Then she crouched near him and, pulling on his hair, yanked him out of the ground.

"Doesn't get old, I bet," he said, dusting himself off. He picked up Lin, who swung her arms around his neck and chirped, "Baba, baba, baba!" Toph plopped down on a wooden crate and sighed audibly. To her displeasure, the pregnancy and Lin's birth had taken much of her strength. She could still feel the difference two years after the fact. Usually it would take an entire day of earth and metal bending to drain her energy, but now it was only a matter of hours.

Sokka was continually elated by Lin's lisp. She was quiet by nature and often didn't speak, listening to her mother instead. Yet somehow having her father around turned Lin into a chatterbox, and she repeated now to Sokka, "Katawa's a smaw coowie when you go pass dissy goo-giw ack!"

He was laughing too hard to realize Toph was blushing. "I bet she is!" he said to his daughter. Then he looked at Toph, rubbing her own foot on the crate. "Tired?" he asked. "Is she giving you any trouble?"

"Can it," Toph snapped. "Don't patronize me."

"Would you quit it with the 'patronize me' thing? Gosh!" Sokka put Lin on the ground and crossed his arms. "I'm not patronizing you. I want to make sure you're okay."

"You're so thoughtful!" returned Toph effortlessly, standing up to face him. She pulled the earth beneath his feet so that he was inches away from her nose. She pushed at his chest but he held his ground. "Hey, how's your wife? And the kids? Why don't you go make sure they're okay?"

Sokka was quiet. He watched as Toph dropped her arms. Both of them stood silent and still. He could smell her hair and her skin, the way it used to smell after they had spent the night together, giving and taking and kissing until he had to go back home. He was sick of having this argument whenever he visited, and he visited often enough where it bothered him. Regardless, he had never confronted Toph or returned fire when she accused him, when she threw their affair in his face, when she mentioned Suki or their children in a way that made his stomach drop.

This time, he said, "If you hate me so much, why do you let me come here?"

"I don't let you," she answered quietly. "You come here on your own."

"You can earthbend me out," he said. He motioned at the slabs of rock and broken boulders. "Go ahead! Pick up one of those with your magic earthbending and hit me. Kick me out. Do it! If I'm such an issue, then take care of it, Toph Beifong."

"Take care of yourself!" Toph shrieked. She pushed him with more force this time, and Sokka stumbled backwards. He fell and landed on his back. When Lin saw him strike the ground, she started crying and ran towards him. He blinked and moved up. Toph held Lin back with one hand on her shirt. She lifted the girl in this manner and pulled her to her chest.

"I wish you'd stop fighting me," he said from the floor. He took Toph's hand and she pulled him up.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too." Very carefully, he moved forward and kissed Toph's cheek. She flinched but didn't move. Then he kissed Lin's forehead. Lin squealed and clapped.

"Come get something to eat with me," he said. "Go upstairs and freshen up. We can go somewhere nice."

"I don't want to be seen with you," Toph said, but her tone had softened. "It's not a good idea for either of us." He waited. She added unsurely, "Maybe… maybe you can go get some groceries or something, and we'll make something to eat here. Just the three of us."

"Just the three of us!" He repeated, and Toph smiled because he sounded like he did when they were seeing each another between sunset and sunrise, when he would call her his and only his. "Alright! The three of us," he said. "Sounds like a plan. I'll take Lin with me!"

"But—"

"Relax!" He said called out, putting Lin on his shoulders. "No one we know is going to see us at the market"

"Not that!" Toph said back, and Sokka froze, waiting for the rest before leaving the backyard. "Be… be careful," she warned to the back of his head. "With Lin, I mean. Just don't do anything dumb. Keep her close to you. Don't let go of her hand."


	3. Chapter 3

**Mama's Girl**

It wasn't easy growing up the only child. A series of excerpts from the childhood of Lin Beifong. Toph/Sokka, Rated M.

* * *

When Aang asked Toph and Sokka to come to Republic City, it was Lin's fourth birthday. She squirmed in her mother's lap as Sokka read the Avatar's message again, his voice slow and clear, his weight shifting between both legs.

Toph didn't know, but Sokka wondered – as he read – if Aang knew that the letter would be read in a room with a child they had parented out of wedlock. The thought made his eyes glisten and he thanked the spirits that Toph was blind. With the threat of a light now – of someone knowing and seeing their lives and their mistake, embodied quite unfairly in a bouncy little girl – Sokka felt ill. Certainly he did not care to share these mistakes with Aang or Katara, but the imminent end of this game was fast approaching, and Sokka's embarrassment suddenly became tangible. It was funny in a pathetic way that he could feel no guilt sleeping with Suki, or taking his son and daughter to the park, or telling them he loved them. But he felt guilty at the thought – even the beginning of the thought – of having Aang and Katara judge him. Aang and Katara, who might as well be the symbols of purity and love and everything else that clicked correctly in the world. Meanwhile, here he was, reading a letter to the blind girl he had entertained while married and the daughter she had given birth to alone.

Toph kept her head steady and listened to him without reacting. When he finished, she stated simply, "I don't want to," and placed an antsy Lin on the floor. Sokka began speaking but she cut him off, surprising him. "I like my apartment here," she continued. "I like working for the school. I'm comfortable. There's no reason to move if they've gotten this far alone."

"Maybe you're right."

"You don't want to go either." Toph faced him, her opaque eyes wide and watery. It occurred to him that it was possible she felt the same way. He knew she was proud of her life and her daughter, and she never admitted to feeling any regret or shame over what had passed on either of them, but she was breaking. Sokka could feel the cracks and fissures, the new tone in her voice, the way she regarded Lin with an alertness that was deliberate and new. He frowned and scooped Lin into his arms, breathing deep for that familiar smell. Lin was each dream he had wanted with Toph, each secret wish they found themselves selfishly revealing after sex or after food, each primal longing embedded in their union. She was what was forbidden: a family, or the bud of a family, a symbol of their lovemaking that would live and breathe and move as any other living thing. She smelled like the sea, salty and muddy, like bread before baking. But she was restless and strong, and he released her from his grip almost as quickly as he had picked her up.

"I don't want to go," he confirmed, controlling the shivers in his throat. "But I think we have to. This isn't an invitation to a party. It's an obligation… We have to. It's a responsibility."

"I know what 'obligation' means," she reported, but cynicism had taken the place of hostility. "They've been away for years. We built our lives without them. And moving to a big city..." She paused, her attention shifting to Lin. "It's not this simple."

He said, with hope, "Maybe it is," and attempted to smile, but his stomach was tight. He threw his arms over his chest and watched Toph stand up, her back to him. She filled a glass with water from the steel pump at the sink and drank slowly.

"I don't want to," she repeated. "Maybe I'll end up going eventually, but you have to go first. We can't go together. Or I go first. I don't know."

Lin said, "Mama, where are you going!" Toph handed her a papaya juice box, one of Sokka's treats from this morning, and picked the girl up. Lin didn't oppose to Toph's grip, and Sokka found himself jealous and simultaneously surprised at his jealousy. When she was younger, Sokka had been the favorite, but now the tide was shifting. He was sure that if he left, Lin would forget him. Toph was careful that Lin called her father 'Sokka' as opposed to 'Baba,' a courtesy that was necessary, but that stung nonetheless.

"Lin-Lin, we aren't going anywhere," Toph explained to the girl. "Sokka is leaving."

Lin looked at Sokka, her lip wavering, before turning to her mother again. She took the straw from her mouth and asked, "Is that true?"

"No, it's not!" her father exclaimed, abruptly animated. He broke out into a goofy smile and reached for her. "It's a joke! Got you! Ha!" He growled and Lin giggled. Toph picked up the juice box from the floor as Sokka spun his daughter in the air. She felt at ease – she always felt at ease hearing his laugh, no, _their_ laughs together – before she remembered she would have to face Katara soon. The suspicions had been there for years, she knew, but there was no doubt that Lin's physical appearance would give something away. Genetics and time were against her, and Katara, already a mother of three, would know right away.

So what? Toph thought to herself. The worst that could happen was a judgment, which, objectively, wasn't all that unfair. She had slept with a married man, had his child, and she was in the wrong. But Aang and Katara couldn't punish her any more than her own parents could. Any disapproval would be a sideways glance that she couldn't see anyway, and then what? Lin would be safe with her, safe with Sokka, and what was important was that Suki was still in the dark. Sokka's family was important to Toph, as much as she disliked the situation now, and if they were smart, they could prevent it all from unfolding like unbaked pastries between their hands. They just had to be smart.

She could control it. She had to. The fact that the chaos would be within her reign and analytic ability gave her peace, and she focused on Lin's laughter now, the way it swung like piano keys. Sokka's laugh was big and clear, a bunch of plates breaking at once, and Toph laughed too, unaware of her own laugh, delicate but strong, a wind blowing through broken chimes.


	4. Chapter 4

Toph listened as Lin's breaths grew steady and regular. She lifted her hand and cupped the girl's left cheek, as warm and smooth as an apple in the sun. She heard herself sigh and, troubled, stood up. Lin had slept alongside her mother in their narrow bed since birth, but Sokka had never stayed over this late. She walked out of the room with heavy feet.

"Is she asleep?"

"Yes." Toph began to make tea. She guessed it was a little before midnight, but it was Friday, and she had nothing to do tomorrow. A hot cup of caffeine would be welcome as she sorted her upcoming move. Hesitantly, she said, "You should probably head back."

She heard him stand up and stretch, the grunt he made when his shoulders clicked in the back, the breath he released when he dropped his arms. "I don't want to go just yet."

"It's not an option," she said icily. "I don't want – " She stopped herself, thinking what to say to cause the least conflict. "I don't want any trouble with Suki. She doesn't know where you are."

"I told her I was going to be late."

"No, Sokka. Go home."

"Toph." He wrapped his arms around her stomach, her back to him, speaking into her neck. When he felt her shiver, he smiled. "I missed you," he said, a lightness in his voice. "It's been so long since…" He kissed her ear, her cheek, turned her around to face him and found her mouth with his lips. It was the first time they had kissed in five years.

The shock of finding him there, and the realization that this would end up on the couch or floor, left Toph speechless. It's true, she often fantasized about their reunion, but it didn't mean she wanted it. The residual guilt was too much – a stink she couldn't wash away and that she didn't want to revisit. She recognized that stink now in Sokka, the smell of his sweat and the salt around his face, his pores, his skin and hands. The leather of his coat, a smell that the collar left on his shoulders and neck. The animal skin, how it smelled like the oils around his nose.

She pushed him away so that he was at arm's length, her palms still pressed against his chest. She said, "I don't know how you can do this."

He was quiet, but she felt his heartbeat grow faster. Indecision is the cause of more than half of the world's problems, thought Toph, and the idea almost made her laugh. The most complex issue could be watered down to something as mundane as a boy who never made up his mind. Then, presto, a child is born, and three lives are altered forever – possibly more lives, if they weren't careful. "You are a monster," she realized suddenly. "I don't want to play this game anymore. You aren't the one losing."

"I'm sorry," he said, his back stiffening. He put his arms up in defense and took a step back. "I really am. You're right. I…I don't know what came over me."

They stood there like this momentarily, Toph's eyelid twitching with the effort of refusing him. It was the last thing she imagined she could do – she had at first believed she wasn't strong enough, then, too strong to do it, then, she didn't know – but it was over. She was in control. And she said no.

"Can I ask you a question?" she said, picking up her glass and drinking deep. It was a relief she hadn't had expected to find tonight, and it was a welcome one.

"Shoot," he said. "Anything."

"Remember when I told you about Tao?"

Sokka was quiet.

"Remember?" she pressed.

"Yeah. I remember."

"What did you feel when I told you he was my first?"

She felt him cross his arms. "I don't know," he lied.

"You didn't like it, right?" When he didn't answer, Toph said, "You didn't like it."

"No," he said, "I didn't."

She threw her cup in the sink in triumph, metal clanking against metal. "See!" she exclaimed in a whisper. "You hated I was with someone else. In love with someone else. And that was a year before we did anything. Think about how I feel. This isn't fair to either of us. You can't just expect people to clean after you, Sokka." Her voice was low, her eyes dark. "You should leave," she said at last. "We aren't fucking tonight."

Insulted, he turned around. He opened his mouth to argue but clamped it suddenly, perhaps knowing he wouldn't win. This was not what he had expected to find. She counted the footsteps it took for him to reach the door. Twelve, she thought. Then she wondered how she expected Lin grow into a woman in such a small apartment.

When he was gone, Toph sat on the couch and cried into her hands. It was not something she did – she had never allowed herself to cry over Sokka or over her bad luck, raising a girl on a measly teacher's salary when her abilities were worth much more. And Sokka. Where was he? The mayor of a neighboring city, still in its developing years, father of twins, married to a beautiful girl his age who thought the world of him, didn't know his sins and didn't care to pry. It was picturesque enough to make Toph sick, how unfair it was, how unbalanced their fates since Lin was conceived that cold night in December, nearly five years ago. Sokka had rolled off of her, panting, the sweat on his arms beginning to vanish. It was cold and she moved closer to him. He was kissing her breasts as they laid there on their sides. "I wish you knew how much I love you," he had said, and Toph made it a point to never forget his words then, her fingers through his hair as he made his way up to her chin. "You don't know what you mean to me," he continued in a murmur. "How much I look forward to seeing you. There are nights I don't sleep, wanting you to be next to me so bad. God, Toph. It aches."

Then he left, thought Toph now. He decided he couldn't. Or maybe she left? She can't remember. She had left the city for a year when she found out she was pregnant, not wanting Sokka or Suki to know and simultaneously knowing she loved Sokka too much to kill his son or daughter. But when she returned, he hadn't attempted to find her, and she didn't go out searching for him. Instead she began teaching at the primary school, bringing Lin with her, renting out the noodle shop apartment. In the early months, when Lin was only a few months old, there were days she couldn't afford to simultaneously pay the rent and feed her daughter, and instead she had offered herself, trading sex for a place to stay. The landlord's bulky, hairy son who smelled sour, had a lisp. His father who was too old and easily tricked. There was protection available now, he always brought it. But now she always had the rent – Sokka helped – and the landlord's son had fallen in love with a girl far younger than him, thin and pretty, possibly a virgin. Toph smiled miserably, her stomach tightening. Here they were, she thought, imagining Sokka's mouth on her body, his muscles as he moved over her, the peace she felt when he held her. She counted the miseries she encountered because of him and because of Lin, but she couldn't decide yet if the ends had justified the means. They were the outcome of an affair, everyone clutching the shards of a deep and painful love.


	5. Chapter 5

_this is a short chapter – wanted to warn & scare you. also, the character "tao" is real, he's the kid in the wheelchair from season one in the series – review me! i update faster when i'm being flattered. true story._

* * *

Toph was certain that her blindness was the sole creator of her persona. Her solid attitude, sometimes hurtful banter, and unwillingness to adapt to passivity were all traits that had stemmed from her inability to see. Always feeling she was at a disadvantage, Toph began to rebel against anything that had placed itself in an authorial position in her life. The first to feel this sting was the unfortunate couple who had birthed her, Lao and Poppy BeiFong. The next was Sokka.

In their early months together, just as the affair was brewing, Toph made it a point not to show dependence or fear around him. But in truth, she had been terrified. The entire ordeal – only some six months long, and haphazardly constructed around weekends and late nights – caused Toph deep stress, but she never showed or disclosed this fear to Sokka. It was better, Toph knew, that he didn't know. Her weakness – her blindness – could not translate to another facet of her life. She had to be strong.

Now, as Toph packed Lin's clothing for their trip to Republic City, she knew that she had predicted her and Sokka's end from day one. She had a silly schoolgirl crush on him back when they had met, but even that had given her butterflies in her stomach, big and ominous, as if he was too good to be true. But was he? Sokka was no better than the other men she'd dated and loved. He was average, and not remarkably so, either. At least some of her other exes could boast success in the face of adversity. Her first true romantic interest, a boy named Tao who was restricted to a wheelchair, had overcome every physical obstacle to not only lead a healthy, normal life, but also to follow in the path of his father and create inventions that were on the cutting edge of their modern technology. It was Tao who had given Toph the wristwatch that she wore on her left wrist every day, the first of its kind. And, sensitive to Toph's disability, the watch had no glass cover. Toph could feel the hour simply by pressing her fingers to the raised, moving wooden dials.

"Mama!" Lin called from the bed. "Where are you taking all my clothes?"

"We're moving," Toph answered simply. "Remember? We talked about it all last week."

"I thought you were joking!" Lin had lost two of her incisors, the permanent teeth now growing in jaggedly, and the result was a whimsical lisp when she talked, almost like a whistle.

"Your mama doesn't joke." After clipping the bag shut, Toph held her arms open and Lin ran to them, jumping a little off the edge of the bed. Her mother, as usual, caught her in midair and held her there, tickling the bottoms of Lin's arms with her thumbs.

The girl squealed and kicked, and Toph found herself laughing despite the morbidity of her previous thoughts – analyzing Sokka's worth against other men, deciding her predictions had been true but that she had been stupid enough to disregard them, and the like. Lin's innocence was tangible; it filled their small bedroom and spilled out of the windows. There was too much light in this girl.

"My mama does too joke," Lin said. She had dropped herself from her mother's grip and ran around their small bed, a trail of pebbles following her. These were of a very exclusive collection. Lin had gathered them from a creek the day Sokka and Toph had taken her for a picnic. The rocks had had a wondrous luster to them near the water – sleek reds, greens, and blues. Lin was disappointed when she woke up the next day to find that her collection, drying on the windowsill, had all turned gray. Oddly enough, she did not ask Toph about the change in color. She had waited until Sokka's next visit to disclose, in tears, "Sokka, they aren't colorful anymore! Look!" Her father had replied, patting her head, "It's because the moss died, sweetie. You have to keep these kinds of rocks close to the water. Otherwise, they dry out." He had bought her paints the same day, and they spent the afternoon revitalizing the twenty pebbles over newspaper on the kitchen table.

Toph, who had been listening from the kitchen while heating up a pot of tea, couldn't believe that Lin had waited this long to express her discovery. In truth, it had hurt. Somehow Lin knew that Toph couldn't see colors, although her mother had tried every venue to keep her own blindness from affecting her daughter's life.

"I do joke?"

"Yeah! All the time. You play tricks too."

"I do not!"

"Yeaaaah, you play tricks on Sokka" – she was counting on her fingers – "on the land lord, on the lady down the street, on the school principal, on those kids that come to the noodle shop, on… everybody!"

Toph sat on the edge of the mattress and patted her knee. Lin jumped up to her lap and swung her small, thin arms tightly around Toph's neck. She kissed her mother's cheek, surprised to find tears there. Lin held Toph's face with both hands – such a mature movement for hands so small, thought Toph – and wiped the remaining wetness on her fingers.

Lin asked, again with a tone that well exceeded her years, "What's wrong?"

"I'm sad to move," Toph lied quickly. "We're going to miss this place. Right?"

The girl shrugged. "Not really. We're both moving together."

Toph grinned broadly. "Hey, you're right, kiddo." She paused and pointed to the girl's chest. "The only person who is going to miss me is you. And the only person who is going to miss you is me." She laughed and shook her head. "We're in this as a pair."

"Pears and apples," agreed Lin, repeating lyrics from a song they'd learned at school. Her voice grew softer. "Lychee nuts and melon, I ain't tellin…"

"Will you sing that all for Sokka when he gets here later?"

"No!" Lin cried. "No, don't tell him I sing! No, no!" She repeated "no" as she ran out of their bedroom. Toph heard her jump on the kitchen counter, a few earthbending moves thrown in to her dance. "No, no, no! He can't know!" She sang loudly, swaying the pebbles in the air above her head, "Pears and apples! Lychee nuts and melon, I ain't tellin'!"

Toph laughed, "Alright, I won't tell him," and continued to pack their belongings. There wasn't much else to put in bags that did not belong to Lin. The entire armoire in their room – a small, shabby wooden thing – was reserved for Lin's shirts, pants, coats, and kimonos. Toph boasted a total of four outfits, which she washed daily. She realized as she was packing away Lin's small school shoes that she hadn't bought herself an outfit in two years. "What will Katara think?" Toph asked herself miserably, but the thought just made her smile. Katara probably had a lineup of new suits waiting for her and her daughter.

What was there to miss? Toph thought. Their poverty? Their secret existence? One of the greatest earthbenders – if not _the _greatest – was stifled to teaching primary school lessons to the snotty, sticky offspring of noblemen. Certainly Aang and Katara would have something else planned for her when she got to Republic City. This would be a new chapter, Toph decided. She was bored of living her life as a spectator when, arguably, she couldn't even see the show. As Toph listened to Lin's singing and dancing in the kitchen, she felt a sudden surge of welcome, warm peace. "Chapter two," she said to herself quietly, and those words never sounded so sweet.


End file.
